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Twenty-seven countries across the world are in debt crisis, with a further 80 at risk of being so, according to new figures released for World Debt Day on 16 May. The figures, calculated by Eurodad member the Jubilee Debt Campaign, classify countries as in debt crisis if they have a large financial imbalance with the rest of the world and large government payments on external debt, as a proportion of revenue. According to this analysis, 27 countries are currently in debt crisis, up from 22 when the figures were last calculated in 2015.

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The European Union is on the verge of adopting proposals to reorient its development policy to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and contribute to “ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind”. However, instead of sending a strong signal of its commitment to the 2030 Agenda, the new EU Consensus on Development appears to be yet another policy proposal that puts migration management and border control at the centre of development cooperation.

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The recent deal between Greece's ruling coalition and its creditors will take the country "back to the future" of austerity and debtocracy, according to some critics, who say it will increase poverty and over-indebtedness in Greece, and will deal a blow to the country’s sovereign rights.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that poverty reduction in the world’s poorest countries risks being diluted by the UK government’s increasing tendency to devote a bigger slice of Britain’s aid budget to pursuing the national interest.

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A new report from Global Policy Forum, Bread for the World, Misereor and Welt-sichten examines the role that multi-stakeholder partnerships play in the implementation of the SDGs. The report warns of the risks, side-effects and dangers, as well as the opportunities, of such partnerships. The contributions deal with some of the major global partnerships in the area of food security, renewable energy and data availability (in german).

According to a new briefing paper from Eurodad member Oxfam GB, to combat inequality in Africa, political and business leaders have to shape a profoundly different type of economy. It must start with the needs of Africa’s women and young people for good quality sustainable jobs, rather than the needs of the richest and of foreign investors.

"Broadly speaking, our cognitive biases channel our empathy towards speciﬁc, vivid, observable examples of human suffering, and away from stigmatised groups, while our social conditioning channels our empathy in directions that serve the interests of those with the power to do the conditioning, determining which groups are stigmatised and to what degree."
- Raoul Martinez